St Martin - Sint Maarten

[+PhilatSea]

Since this Caribbean Island shows as one country and has done so since the start when in fact for over a year now it is Officially two separate countries with their own Parliament Buildings and Government is a change coming to the way the caches on each side are going to be displayed?

[+Straight-Cache-Homey]

I have St Martin and The Netherlands. I wouldn't count on a change anytime soon.

[+The A-Team]

Since this Caribbean Island shows as one country...

When I look at the caches on that island, I don't see one country. The caches on the northern part are listed as "St. Martin", while the ones on the southern part are "Netherlands Antilles". What exactly needs to change?

 

Edit: I see that the Netherlands Antilles were dissolved in 2010, so I guess the southern part of the island should now be "Sint Maarten" and Bonaire, Sint Eustatius and Saba should be rolled into the Netherlands. That doesn't sound like what you were asking about, though.

Edited January 10, 2013 by The A-Team

[AZcachemeister]

I wouldn't care what you called it if I got the chance to go caching there for a week.

 

It's a beautiful tropical island, with friendly natives and awesome history...and you want to quibble about the political designation?

[+Harry Dolphin]

I wouldn't care what you called it if I got the chance to go caching there for a week.

 

It's a beautiful tropical island, with friendly natives and awesome history...and you want to quibble about the political designation?

 

Don't get me started! Political reality.

Somewhere, there is a photo of me under the "Welcome to France" sign at the boundary. But that was long before geocaching.

I was considering a trip to St. Pierre, when it was still considered by Groundpeak to be part of France (which it is.) Instead, I stayed an extra day in Newfoundland.

[+2-hobbits]

A little curious about political designations. The Netherlands Antilles was dissolved Oct 10,2010. Sint Maarten was one of the entities. While the other islands were given designations (Saba, Bonaire, St. Eustatius), Sint Maarten was not. Therefore caches in the Dutch side of the island are labeled under the old designation, Netherlands Antilles or incorrectly as St. Martin, the name for the French side. Saba was another of the constituent parts. There are a small number of caches on the island of which most are still designated as located in the Netherlands Antilles. Now you may say they predate the dissolution of the political entity. There is one cache that dates from 2004 that has the current country designation of Saba. There is even one that says it is in St. Martin!

 

My questions I guess are, is it up to the cache owner to make the correct decision as to country, or does a reviewer verify? After publication is it up to the cache owner to make the change? Should it even be changed? Or should caches be archived under the old country listing and re-incarnated in the new? After all, in 2009 on a trip to Saba you would have visited the Netherlands Antilles. After Oct 10, 2010 you would not have. If you visited before dissolution would you want your country visited arbitrarily changed. If you visited after, would you want to show an erroneous visit.

 

This line of thought may only prove that I studied too many political geography courses back in the day... Or there is some obsessive disorder involved... But is anyone interested enough to comment?

[+NYPaddleCacher]

A little curious about political designations. The Netherlands Antilles was dissolved Oct 10,2010. Sint Maarten was one of the entities. While the other islands were given designations (Saba, Bonaire, St. Eustatius), Sint Maarten was not. Therefore caches in the Dutch side of the island are labeled under the old designation, Netherlands Antilles or incorrectly as St. Martin, the name for the French side. Saba was another of the constituent parts. There are a small number of caches on the island of which most are still designated as located in the Netherlands Antilles. Now you may say they predate the dissolution of the political entity. There is one cache that dates from 2004 that has the current country designation of Saba. There is even one that says it is in St. Martin!

 

My questions I guess are, is it up to the cache owner to make the correct decision as to country, or does a reviewer verify? After publication is it up to the cache owner to make the change? Should it even be changed? Or should caches be archived under the old country listing and re-incarnated in the new? After all, in 2009 on a trip to Saba you would have visited the Netherlands Antilles. After Oct 10, 2010 you would not have. If you visited before dissolution would you want your country visited arbitrarily changed. If you visited after, would you want to show an erroneous visit.

 

This line of thought may only prove that I studied too many political geography courses back in the day... Or there is some obsessive disorder involved... But is anyone interested enough to comment?

 

Groundspeak has a list of 250 (I think) countries/territories that is primarily derived from the UN geopolitical ontology so a cache owner could not arbitrarily select a country/territory name that was not on that list. I notice that on the select list of counties on the Hide and Seek a cache page that Netherland Antilles is not included though there are certainly caches which are still labeled Netherland Antilles (most caches on Saba).

 

According to the FAOStat (FAO is an organization of the United Nations that I work with frequently) the old St. Martin island is now split into Saint-Martin (French Part) and Sint Maarten (Dutch Part) but the Groundspeak list still has St. Martin for both. As there are only about 30 caches on the island, it seems to me that it wouldn't take much work to reclassify all of the caches properly. The same goes for Saba and other islands that were part of Netherland Antilles. It probably wouldn't take more than a day to clean up all the caches on all the islands formally known as Netherland Antilles. There is, however, one cache that claims to be both in Sint Maarten and Saint-Martin.

 

Generally, GS, has tried to follow geographical boundaries rather than get caught up in political boundary debates. They were very quick to split up Sudan into Sudan and South Sudan. It'll be interesting to see what happens in Ukraine.

 

By the way, there is a thread here called "Country Collectors" where we've had these kinds of discussions. If GS did change the official country designation on all the caches located on the islands formally known as Netherlands Antilles it would effect the Statistics/Maps pages and likely result in those that are interested in such things increasing their number of "countries" in which they've found a cache. I'm currently at 20, but any change to the Saint-Martin/Sint Maarten caches wouldn't impact me.

[+2-hobbits]

Netherlands Antilles is still on the list of selectable countries for cache placement as is St. Martin (island) but neither Saint-Martin nor Sint Maarten as you say.

 

It has been 3-1/2 years since Netherlands Antilles was dissolved. You mention South Sudan was added to the selection list promptly. It seems as were Saba, Bonaire, and "Statia". Maybe Saint-Martin and Sint Maarten just fell through the cracks.

 

Once the new 'country' name is added to the selectable list, is it then up to the CO to make the change on individual caches, or does Groundspeak make the changes en bloc?

 

I wonder too, are there other examples that were updated in a timely fashion, and others that were not?

[+irisisleuk]

Personally I wouldn't change the country name of an already existing cache. But new caches should be assigned either Saint Martin (French side )or Sint-Maarten (Dutch side).

But if a cache was placed on the Dutch side when it was still part of the Antilles I prefer the country name to stay Netherlands Antilles for history sake.

Of course the same goes for other former parts of the Netherlands Antilles, which are now countries (Aruba and Curaçao) or part of the Netherlands (Bonaire, Sint Eustasius, Saba).

Don't understand why Sint-Maarten isn't a separate country already by the way, since Curacao and Aruba are and even Bonaire...

 

Of course this also means that if you want to do a pocket query based on country name you will have to do several pocket queries, but this can easily be solved by not using the country name but just a km/miles range that covers the whole island if you make a PQ before going on vacation.

[+NYPaddleCacher]

Netherlands Antilles is still on the list of selectable countries for cache placement as is St. Martin (island) but neither Saint-Martin nor Sint Maarten as you say.

 

It has been 3-1/2 years since Netherlands Antilles was dissolved. You mention South Sudan was added to the selection list promptly. It seems as were Saba, Bonaire, and "Statia". Maybe Saint-Martin and Sint Maarten just fell through the cracks.

 

Once the new 'country' name is added to the selectable list, is it then up to the CO to make the change on individual caches, or does Groundspeak make the changes en bloc?

 

I wonder too, are there other examples that were updated in a timely fashion, and others that were not?

 

Now that's interesting. Netherlands Antilles is not in the select list on the "By Country" search on the Hide and Seek a cache page (http://www.geocaching.com/seek/default.aspx) but it *is* included on the Advanced Search page (which also allows you to search "By Country")

 

As a point of clarification. When searching by country you're not searching by the country "name". The name in the select list is just something to click on and maps to a country_id. The actual search uses the country_id. The country_id for Netherlands Antilles is 148. For many large countries which have regions (e.g. States, Provinces, etc), the By Country search on the Hide and Seek a Cache page redirects to the Advanced Search page. You can get to the Advanced Search page directly by using a country_id=0 (http://www.geocaching.com/seek/nearest.aspx?country_id=0)

 

 

[7rxc]

I wouldn't care what you called it if I got the chance to go caching there for a week.

 

It's a beautiful tropical island, with friendly natives and awesome history...and you want to quibble about the political designation?

 

Don't get me started! Political reality.

Somewhere, there is a photo of me under the "Welcome to France" sign at the boundary. But that was long before geocaching.

I was considering a trip to St. Pierre, when it was still considered by Groundpeak to be part of France (which it is.) Instead, I stayed an extra day in Newfoundland.

I think you should have turned LEFT at Albuquerque... but I know where you are talking about.

The rest of the group is on the island of St. Martin/Sint Maarten in the Caribbean... not quite St. Pierre et Miquelon. Still it is somewhat similar as an enclave of France. Somewhat less tropical though.

edit: capitalization of place names... A

 

Doug 7rxc

Edited May 8, 2014 by 7rxc